Running Alzheimer's or Amnesia?

          It would be too easy to say that the only thing that runs in me is my nose, nor can I say that I like my eggs runny since I don't eat eggs anymore. In the past month since I've become unemployed, I've had the runs, or rather, I started running again. Not very much - just a couple of times a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus a walk/run at Signal Hill on Saturdays with the Long Beach Area Walking Club. The weekday runs only lasts between 30 and 45 minutes which are substitutes for indoor cycling the rest of the week. I'm able to try running again because even though I might overstretch my ankle tendons, I don't have to go to work and dodge potentially violent psychiatric patients. Here is what I found out: all the muscle memory from decades of running has developed Alzheimer's Disease or at the very least, amnesia. My body has forgotten how to run and it feels like I have tired legs all the time. You know - the way your legs feel the day after a very long run or a hard interval workout. When I was forced to stop running due to PTTD a few years ago, my aerobic capacity was way ahead of the slow pace my legs were capable of doing. Nowadays even when I force myself to run the slowest pace possible, it still makes me breathless and I don't seem to be able to get into a steady state anymore. Maybe if I run a couple more times a week, I might get my running legs back but twice is all that my muscles would allow due to my year long statin-induced muscle pain. I'm not sure whether it's only my muscles that can't go longer or if it is my brain that gets tired more quickly. The mental toughness I once had when training for marathons is also now gone. Am I complaining about losing muscle and mental endurance? It's certainly understandable for me to lament it, but since I wasn't expecting much, I'm pretty content on being able to do my 30 to 45 minutes of the slowest possible jogging that my body allows. I don't foresee myself running in races anymore or training with the AREC running club, but once in a while I might challenge myself with a very long walk like the birthday walks I do, or maybe in 2014, it might be a run/walk combination. In the meantime, I'll ride this running wave as long as I possibly can.

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Full Stride Moments

Recycled Pic From Several Weeks Ago

          This one is more than a week late because I didn't feel like writing anything due to health concerns going on with my family (Larry's Transplant and What Happened Next).
          Well, last week I was with the Long Beach Area Walking Club again at Signal Hill, a couple of weeks after I did the solo time trial (Signal Hill Time Trial Walk). This time I did my usual going ahead then coming back with the pack with no particular plan in mind. I ran short distances when I wanted to and walked to recover. There was more walking than running that day. I didn't even swing my arms vigorously during the recovery phases, and as I'll tell you later, that made a difference. For some reason, there were more Signal Hill police cars patrolling than usual. I also saw new sign in one of the trails saying the path was restricted due to people throwing rocks at the houses below. One of the other walkers also told me that boot camps were now banned so I didn't see any that day. There used to be at least 2 or 3 in the past that I've seen on Saturday mornings. I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but Signal Hill has a couple of radio antennas at it's peak and every time I approach the antennas, my FM radio would lose it's signal and all I get is white noise.
          Running nowadays consists of very short distances using very short steps which keeps the pain in my thighs from the statin myopathy under control. But last week, I saw some young whippersnappers running who looked like members of a high school cross country team, so I couldn't resist running with a full stride though still covering short distances, which felt really good. During those brief attempts at running hard, I was also running happy. All that walking and running back and forth enabled me to cover 8.5 miles in the time it took the rest of the group to cover 6 miles. Oh but those short and sweet full stride moments took their toll on my legs. My legs felt so tired and battered after those 8.5 miles and those full stride moments made for much longer recovery moments. It's been more than a week and I could still feel the soreness in my hips. At least the soreness didn't turn to pain.
          These past few weeks, I've been tracking my pace and I'm mystified by the inconsistencies. Let me bore you with the numbers. Last Saturday while walking and running, the average pace over 8.5 miles was 13:02. On those same hills, I covered 7 miles at 13:34 pace of plain walking during my time trial. Hmm, not much difference, right? A few weeks before that on flat terrain, my walking pace was 13:05 for 6 miles. Then there was that 11:25 pace walk/run on flat terrain for 9 miles with AREC, which was a whole lot better than the 11:32 pace I did during a 4 minute jog with 1 minute recovery walk I did a week and a half ago for 4 miles. So will I be correct to conclude that it is better to do random run/walks instead of timed intervals because I'm able to cover distances faster that way? To add to that, there is not much gain in pace while doing a run/walk up and down hills as compared to walking as fast as possible, although the running part stimulates the brain better. I find that faster arm swings make for faster walking. Well, no use being so anal retentive about it. I'll just walk or run as I feel no matter the pace.

Statin Myopathy, Cholesterol Level, Diet, AREC, and Running

          

Photo courtesy of David K. - AREC President

          Normally, I'm overly excited about rejoining AREC's Long Beach Marathon training, but due to my most recent muscle problems, this time, I'm just elated at making it there at all.

          Backtracking a little bit to give you some history: I had to start taking Lipitor again three months ago because my cholesterol level went up when I stopped taking the medication due to muscle pains as a side effect. How bad have the pains been? Well, if I do the same type of workout two days in a row, let's say for example- using the recumbent bike, my leg muscles are more likely to hurt. Giving myself a few months break while taking Coenzyme Q-10 supplements relieved the pain and enabled my muscles recover somewhat. Even though I only took half the dose of the Lipitor (20 mg.) and only 3-4 times a week this time around, I began experiencing the muscle pains again after just 3 months, mainly on both thighs. So I requested a cholesterol level test from my doctor before visiting him and later found out that even the lower dose of medication taken roughly every other day decreased my cholesterol level from 220 to 178. More importantly, my LDL also dropped and my LDL/HDL ration remained good. So the good doctor recommended that I further reduce the dose of the Lipitor to 10 mg. three times a week in hopes that my muscle pains would disappear. By the way, I walked from home to the lab and back for my blood draw and that made for a six mile workout :-) We shall see if the doctor's recommendation is effective in a few weeks.

          A couple of days after the doctor's visit, I showed up at AREC marathon training not necessarily to train with them but mainly to pick up the beach towel which is what we get for being a member this year (last year it was a windbreaker). How often do I go to AREC runs? Well I saw a woman with her husband carrying a baby last Saturday. I never even saw that woman pregnant last year! Anyway, the workout for the day was either 4 or 6 miles and I opted for the longer distance, thinking it would take me about an hour and a half to cover it. Of course a few people after seeing me walking asked if I was recovering from an injury and all I can say is that it's just SNAFU (situation normal, all fu.... up). Nevertheless, my pace felt pretty brisk but since I was the only walker who was doing 6 miles, I was in last place. So much so that when I reached the turnaround point where the water station was, I suggested to Tina and Rosie that they could probably start packing up the supplies because I was the last one . About a mile down the road, good old Dave, the club president was still taking pictures and waiting for the last person. Thank you Dave, for being such a caring president :) I wended my way through the streets of Naples (Long Beach) in the last two miles until I reached the finish area at Joe's Crab Shack. When I clicked off my stopwatch, it registered 1:18:32. Hmm, that seemed quite fast for 6 miles but I couldn't calculate pace per mile out of the top of my head. See, I haven't been using my GPS watch lately. I had to wait to get home to plug in the numbers in a pace calculator before finding out that I had walked at an average pace of 13 minutes and 5 seconds per mile for 6 miles! My goodness, I've never walked that fast before, with or without muscle pain! That was pleasantly surprising since if I'm not mistaken, my previous fastest pace was about 13:40 per mile. I haven't exactly done any roadwork lately other than my futile attempts to jog a few weeks ago before my thigh muscles began being affected by the statins again. I guess those treadmill hill walks must be helping. And I should probably also thank AREC and it's members for the motivation they provided. And to think that I even forgot to bring coughdrops which I suck on during workouts to keep my mouth moist. Maybe not carrying 2 to 3 pieces of candy lessened my load which enabled me to walk faster :) Now if I can only learn proper racewalking technique...

Always appreciating Dave's photos :)

          Going back to my battle with cholesterol - taking psyllium and fiber gummies weren't working by themselves. In addition to the lower dose of Lipitor, I also had to do other things like cutting the cheese from my diet, bringing my own turkey sandwiches to work instead of eating the ham and cheese they give out for snacks, substituting fat free sherbet for ice cream, and using imitation crab meat or tofu instead of meat for my barley and vegetables concoction. Other things I've cut out are hamburgers, hotdogs, fried chicken, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches except for an occasional jelly sandwich. One thing I can't let go completely though are the sweets, which is my guilty pleasure, and some of you may have already seen my dessert photos on Facebook.

          So two things to be happy about: being able to walk faster and lowering my cholesterol to healthy levels. To end this post, I decided to just focus on the things that I can do (like walking at a good pace) and be thankful for them rather than lament what I cannot do (like running).

Always try to look good when you see a photographer :)

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The Boulder, The Thigh Injury, The Oil Change Walk, and the Pregnant Dream

So there was this rock that rolled into town two weeks ago and I was planning on seeing it on my way home from work. I even made a note of it on a post it pad. Well I totally forgot about it until was at a grocery checkstand and I overheard a cashier mention it to a coworker. I drove less than a mile from the store and found the rock where it was supposed to stay all day. They only moved it at nighttime to minimize traffic problems. The rock was parked in the center median and occupied the inner lanes of both sides of the streets leaving the outer lanes for the vehicles to travel through. I took a picture of course but it’s not anything you haven’t already seen in the newspapers or the internet. Truthfully, I was slightly underwhelmed because I thought it would be bigger than the monstrosity that it already was. Maybe because it was shrink-wrapped in white plastic. Nevertheless, it was nice to experience the unusual event so close to home.

You would think that I had enough problems with my ankles when I do one of my infrequent attempts at running. A couple of weeks ago, the plan was to run a little and walk a lot for about an hour just like I’ve been doing in Signal Hill. It went pretty well at the start because I was able to do my full stride on the running portions no matter how short in duration they were. About half an hour into it, my plan was spoiled when I began having some pain in my left thigh. Oh my, another tribulation. It was not a new type of injury though because it was something I’ve had three times before. The last I can remember was about 4 years ago. The difference was that in the past, I would have kept on running regardless of the pain. This time, I stopped and walked the rest of the way and just extended the workout to an hour and a half. I haven’t tried running since.

On a related note, there was finally a Q&A on the Runner’s World website addressing PTTD (my permanent ailment). Here is the link:  http://sportsdoc.runnersworld.com/2012/03/orthotics-recommendation-for-ruptured-tendons.html. There might be a slight hope for some relief but first I have to find a talented orthotist as mentioned in the article.

A week after the thigh injury, I had my car serviced (smog check and oil change). While that was being done, I was able to do a walking workout of about 8 miles. Rain was in the forecast for several days and the clouds were already thick that morning but fortunately I was spared from it. The walk lasted two hours and I was actually back at the shop in an hour and a half. When I saw my car was still in the oil change bay, I tacked on another 30 minutes. The only running I did that day was to cross one street. When I had my car serviced in past years, I would either run around the neighborhood or if I took it to the shop on a workday, I would take their courtesy shuttle home, go to sleep, wake up in the afternoon and run to the shop to pick up my car. What a time saver, and oh how I miss those days.

The L.A. Marathon was held last Sunday morning and I watched it on TV while riding my stationary bike. I didn’t realize it was the 27^th iteration of the event already. The first time I ran it, it was L.A. Marathon V in 1990 which finished at the L.A. Coliseum. I mentioned the marathon because I had a weird dream Sunday night about a running acquaintance who ran in it. I dreamt that she was pregnant, had a C-section, ran the L.A. Marathon a few days later, then the evening after the race, she was singing and dancing in a Filipino reunion party. I still haven’t told her about that dream. Should I tell her before, or after she runs the Boston Marathon in a few weeks?

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2011 - A Year of Acceptance

2011 was probably the least number of posts I had since I started blogging and all because there was nothing much to write about running. Well, 2012 is here and looking back to what I wrote on January 2, 2010, I mentioned that I had to stop running four times that year because of my worsening ankle tendon problems (Reflections in the Past Year of Not Running). In 2011, it was not about stopping but rather finally learning to accept that running is no longer a regular or routine part of my life. It only took more than two years for my brain to get rewired to realize this. The pleasure I experienced from running can never be duplicated by cycling but if I think about it as just another workout then it feels like a good enough substitute. Heck I didn’t even do any outdoor cycling last year because I figured I got a better workout on the recumbent or spinning bike in lesser time. I also did a lot of brisk walking in the spring and summer, but just like road cycling, that took too much time. It was more efficient to walk at a constant uphill on a treadmill. Sure I’ve tried running a few times but only short distances and they were few and far between. To celebrate the last day of my mostly non-running 2011, I managed to shuffle/walk for a whole hour. I don’t know how many times I was able to run last year. If I am to guess and say 20, that may be too much (this from someone who used to run 365 day a year for 21 plus years). Of course I keep a log, but I don’t look at the whole picture any more. I just take it one workout a day at a time. Being able to maintain an acceptable weight played a  major part of being able to live without running. I was relying too much on running to keep my weight down in spite of overeating. Since I’ve mostly stopped running, I’m learning to eat lesser.

A few months ago, I partially disassembled my elliptical machine and placed it in a corner of my living room. The movements of the workout further irritated my ankles. For those without problems like mine, I’m sure the machine is still a good running substitute.

So what does 2012 look like in terms of working out? I don’t see myself signing up for any more races including my annual visit to the Long Beach Marathon. An occasional short run will have to do, with the majority of my workouts consisting of stationary cycling. In short, more of the same as last year. This is what my body allows and so be it.

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Long Walks On Pavement

It was time to do another long walk, and last Thursday, it started with a trip to the grocery store which took me 20 minutes to get there and 20 minutes back. That only covered about 1/4^th of my intended time. After depositing the groceries at home, I resumed the workout. There was no set target this time like when I went up Signal Hill the previous week. More like meandering around the neighborhood. Like before, it was four minutes with aggressive arm swings with a one minute recovery. I don’t know if it was just one of those days, having no target, or the hotter than usual day, but it felt like a boring workout. A couple of lines from Adele’s song “Chasing Pavements” came to mind:

Should I give up,
Or should I just keep chasin' pavements?
Even if it leads nowhere…

My concentration was not very good and the pace wavered, but I kept on until I finally reached my goal of 2 hours and 45 minutes. I was just relieved when it was through. The pace was slower than the 2 ½ hour walk the previous week but the extra 15 minutes brought me closer to my goal half marathon distance.

When my ankles still allowed me to run, I would always go overdistance when training for half marathons. I don’t feel that this is necessary since I’m only walking the Long Beach half marathon this time. I feel that I could walk another 25 minutes and finish the race. There’s one hitch though. When I checked my new work schedule for October, I saw that I was supposed to work on the weekend of the race. Now I have to find someone to cover my shift and I hope one of my coworkers could do it.

Even with the heat last Thursday, I didn’t get drenched with sweat. Perspiration seemed to evaporate as quickly as they came out of my pores. In spite of that, I lost 4 pounds of fluids. When I got home, I rehydrated, iced my ankles, then bound them in braces to control possible swelling. A walking workout nowadays takes 4 to 7 days of recovery for my aching ankles. Ho hum, life’s like that now. Anyway, I managed to cover 11.36 miles in 2 hours and 45 minutes. If you remember, I did a 3 hour easy walk on my birthday (June 2) and covered 11.35 miles.

Oh well, sorry for the dreary post. It’s hard to follow a topic like the Tamarungs of Nangka-Nangka.

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To Signal Hill and Back

A view of Long Beach stretching towards the ocean - from atop Signal Hill with oil derricks in the foreground.

Well it was time for catch up mileage for my half marathon training. The AREC training group did 10 miles the other Saturday and I was hoping to equal the distance on Tuesday morning. That wasn’t a definite plan. I intended to walk southward and see where one hour would take me. It was a route I had taken so many times before while running, but only once have I done it while walking, which happened last winter. At that time, one hour brought me to four miles so it was an 8 mile round trip. On Tuesday (8/29/11), my strategy was to walk for 4 minutes while swinging my arms aggressively, then recover for 1 minute with a regular quick stride. See, I walk faster when I swing my arms aggressively. So the workout was similar to the 4 minute run/ 1 minute walk that I do. This day was also the first time I was going to use my recently acquired HD radio, but that’s a different  topic I’ll write about in another blog post.

The weekend heat wave had broken by Tuesday morning so it was cool when I started at about 8:15 a.m. My internal compass was pointed towards Signal Hill. I didn’t know if I was actually going to reach it since my winter walk in that direction didn’t even get me to the base of the hill. When I hit one hour on Tuesday, I was already at the base of Skyline Drive on Cherry Avenue. Instead of turning around for the hour walk back home, I proceeded up the hill instead. When I reached the peak, I stopped briefly to take some pictures with my cell phone. I wasn’t sure how they were going to turn out because I took them blindly since I couldn’t see the screen due to the glare. Then I continued the walk around the other side of the hilltop, then headed back down on the way home. Let me tell you, it’s rougher on my ankles to walk downhill than up, specially when the angle is very steep. I had to bend my knees more on the way down to lessen the shock on my ankles. I was on target to get home at 2 hours and 20 minutes so I had to do some dipsy doos on a few streets so I could reach 2 ½ hours. When I reached that time and clicked my GPS watch off, I merely a few steps from my door and had traveled 10.53 miles at a pace of 14 minutes and 15 seconds per mile. All this catch up mileage has given me shinsplints, but it doesn’t seem to affect my stride too much as compared to having them while running. Other than taking too much time, it was a pretty good walking workout. By the way, at the Track and Field World Championships yesterday, the winner of the women’s 20 kilometer (12.4 miles) walk was clocked at 1 hour, 29 minutes and 42 seconds.

An additional note here regarding weight and fluid loss: I woke up and started the walk at 116.2 pounds. Like I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t hot day. In fact it was a little cool at the start and it didn’t feel like I was sweating very much. I didn’t even feel thirsty. However I was surprised at my fluid loss when I weighed in after the workout. It was down to 112.8 pounds. Wow! I never thought I could lose that much fluids while walking.

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Thursday’s Urban Walkabout

Well it seems like it’s back to walking for me. My ankles haven’t really recovered from the 9 mile run three weeks ago and I didn’t even start doing a walking workout on the treadmill until early last week. I happened to have awakened earlier than usual on Thursday morning after being off from work the previous night, and thought I’d walk outdoors maybe for 2 to 2 ½ hours, which would have made me catch up to the training mileage for the Long Beach Half Marathon.

So I headed out towards the Virginia Country Club area and planned to crisscross the streets and maybe throw in some loops. I was only aiming or at least hoping  for a pace of 15 minutes per mile while doing 4 minutes of aggressive walking with 1 minute of slower recovery. After all, I haven’t done a walking workout in a while and besides it was a hot day. The first couple of miles were uneventful but, darn it, when I hit three miles my left ankle started to hurt, and I thought I would have to abort the workout. Going into the fourth mile which I thought I was on my way home, the ankle started to stabilize, so I pressed on. That’s when the maybes started: maybe one more block, maybe 5 miles, maybe 6, maybe 7, okay, let’s try making it 8 and that should do it. When I hit 2 hours, I was slightly past 8 miles so I went for 8.5 to even it out. But wait, there’s more – I ran up the time to 2:15 and completed 9.13 miles. The first 7 miles were right on the money at my goal pace of 15 minutes per mile, but the last 2 miles were way faster because at the end, the average pace dropped down to 14:48 for the whole distance. So I didn’t make it to 10 miles, but it wasn’t bad at all for not having walked for weeks.

Even though I was surprised and excited to have completed that distance, I didn’t write about it right away because I was afraid of the aftermath. Often my ankles hurt more the day after, so I had to wait and see how it would turn out this time. Well, it seems like the tendons recovered much faster than when I subject them to the pounding of running because the pain is not as much.

After experimenting between a short, quick heel-to-toe stride and my more normal longer walking stride, I found out that my pace is faster with the longer stride, so maybe I’ll keep it that way. It isn’t as pretty as the swiveling hips of racewalkers, but it seems to work better for me.

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A Fortnight of No Walking and Blogging

Oh well, I haven’t posted anything in more than a week which is my longest drought since I started this blog. Just lazy I suppose or nothing to talk about, more likely. Ideas must be running dry. Notice how I managed to add “running” to that sentence?

First, a freak injury which sidelined me for more than a week in which I had to hold off from walking. It was more about overstretching an already injured or weak tendon, that being the left posterior tibialis. I was trying to keep awake or warm one night at work and was doing squats. The first few sets were okay but when I tried to do faster repetitions, that’s when disaster struck. I guess I didn’t control my legs too well and I overstretched to tendon mid squat. I was hurting the whole night and even though I avoid taking analgesics other than a daily aspirin for heart health, I had to take Motrin for pain relief. After that I had to limit myself to stationary cycling for exercise for about a week and a half.

Second, I missed participating in the Wrigley River Run this year (I ran it the past couple of years) because I had to attend a mandatory Management of Assaultive Behavior class on the day of the race. Renewing it annually is a requirement for my job and my certification was supposed to expire the day after the class. Even if I didn’t have to attend the class, I would have missed the race anyway due to the aforementioned injury. There were physical movements involved in the class and I tried to limit myself as much as possible due to the ankle pain.

I tried walking again on the treadmill when the pain subsided last Thursday morning. Normally I would have gone to 10% incline within the first five minutes of the workout and at least 3.5 mph and gradually increasing it up to 4 mph. That may sound slow, but remember it’s an uphill walk all the way. Well, on my first day back to a walking workout, the best I could do was 7.5% incline (which I didn’t even reach until about half an hour into the workout) and 3.5 mph. It was good enough for that day and besides, I have to save something for Saturday’s AREC workout.

And that brings us to Saturday. My alarm woke me up mid-dream at 5:00 a.m. and my first thought was - do I really have to do this?. After all, it’s too soon to try a six or eight mile walk after not having done so for almost two weeks. I banished the thought and got up, prepared myself for the task ahead, then headed to our meeting area. That day, instead of starting with the group I left about 15 minutes early to get a head start before they caught up with me. Normally I would do a mile warm up, then start with the others. I incorporated the warm up with the whole workout this day and instead of doing six miles (for the half marathoners) or eight miles (for the full marathoners), I did an in between seven miles. I tried a few steps of jogging while I was at it, but the left ankle felt very tight, as if it was about to tear. So I went back to walking and didn’t try to push the pace even at that. It was brisk but not as brisk as the 13:30 to 13:45 pace per mile I did in previous weeks. I managed a few short jogs in the last three miles which was probably not a good idea, but the ankle felt okay when I finished. I’ve mentioned this before in my posts: once the endorphins kick in, the analgesic effect lasts for hours and the pain feels diminished. It wasn’t until the next day that I felt it really badly. Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation were of little help. Fortunately, when I left for work the pain had subsided probably because of the increased circulation in that area. Now, it’s a wait and see to figure out when I can do a walking workout again. Stay tuned.

Things noticed during the above mentioned walk: swim trunks are similarly cut and just as comfortable as running shorts for workouts and much cheaper too. I never knew there was a lifeguard museum in Long Beach. It was housed in what was not more than the size of a snack shack. That’s what happens when one has a meandering pace. You observe more things than when you are running breathlessly. When I took off my shoe when I got home, I found a piece of jacaranda flower in my shoe. The search for a runner’s high even when it pain is not such a good idea, but runners (or in my case: ex runner) do it anyway. Nuts, I say!
And as an addendum: In the last mile of my walk, one of the long time runners from the AREC club passed me and said "I couldn't do 21 years of running every day like you did". Thanks for making me laugh and smile Bernard! I responded - I couldn't even do 5 minutes non stop nowadays! With that, we continued on our way to the finish. Since that running streak has been long gone, sometimes I forget nowadays that it even happened.

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A Slow Blur of a Birthday Walk

         So I turned 54 a few days ago and like last year I got greetings for two days because my friends in the Philippines and similar hemispheres are about 14 hours ahead of U.S. time. Since I was off from work those two days, I managed to individually thank all those who greeted me. Click the “Like” button and say thank you. But enough about that. For some reason I woke up very early on June 2nd and since I didn’t have anything better to do, I thought I’d go out for a long walk, perhaps in the two hour range. It didn’t turn out quite that way even though I turned around after going out for an hour. I did some meanderings into some neighborhoods instead of heading directly back home and that added another hour to the whole jaunt.
This was not one of those arm swinging, hip swiveling, face paced walks which I had been doing on Saturdays with AREC. It was more leisurely. In fact the first couple of miles were in the 17 minutes and 20 seconds per mile range. The pace picked up ever so slightly in the miles that followed but it was never forced. I hardly broke a sweat, certainly not on my brow, and just a little bit on my back. Maybe because it was a cool morning and I started early. I can’t really describe the sights and sounds of this experience because it was mostly a blur to me. My mind doesn’t quite work very well that early.
I used to do these long jaunts years ago during special occasions like New Year’s day, my birthday, 4th of July, etc., but I did it running and not more than two hours. I don’t know what came over me that I extended it to 3 hours this time. Maybe to prove that I can do it or to see what distance I can cover on an easily paced walk. I ended up with 11.35 miles at an overall pace of 15:52. If I went another half hour, I would have done a half marathon!
The aftermath of that long walk? From the shins up, everything felt ok. Below that, my ankles hurt, but not so badly. So maybe if I can keep my ankle tendons as they are come October, I just might be able to finish the Long Beach half marathon. The only question now is: walk more briskly so I can get to the finish line faster but with more pain on the ankles, or walk like I did on my birthday and get to the finish line longer but with less pain?

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Treading Pavement

          Now that the supposed day of rapture has come and gone, let me give you a blow by blow account of that day’s walk. The previous week, I finished a one mile warm up in 15:11. This week, the warm up mile time went down to 14:30. Things were looking up already. At the start, it felt like I was going at a pretty good clip. The only difference this time was that I didn’t pass any runners/joggers. I don’t think that the two I passed last week showed up this time. That, or they had improved their pace considerably in a week’s time that they were way ahead of me. So there I was again, trailing all the others.

 That's me, trailing the man with the red cap. I'm last as usual.

At an out and back portion of the course, it was great to see people I used to run with coming back and we cheered each other on. In spite of my slowness, it feels nice to be accepted by my friends who still run. How far behind was I?  When I reached the turnaround point, I told the people at the water station that they can start packing up because I was the last one.
As far as my power walking went, I gave it some effort but it didn’t feel like I could equal what I managed the week before. I didn’t even get close to getting short of breath. No matter how hard I tried to walk faster, it felt like treading water. Maybe I was subconsciously trying to be protective of my ankles and would not push off hard enough. I also experimented the swivel hips and heel to toe techniques, but I couldn’t keep that up for more than a few meters because it felt so unnatural.
Trying to pick up the pace in walking feels so much different from running. In running, you can speed up by increasing your stride length or the cadence of your steps. There seems to be a limiting factor when you try to do this in walking. You can only try walking so fast and if you go any faster, you might was well be jogging. Which of course doesn’t help with my ankles because of the additional impact forces.
So what’s next in this experiment? Perhaps I should go back to the technique I used the previous week and that was basing my pace on my perceived effort where my breathing felt like I was doing a slow run. We’ll see next week if the ankles cooperate.


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May 21st, 2011 - On The Day of Rapture, A Rapturous Walk

          After having widely exceeded my pace during the first week of AREC marathon training and astounding myself with it, I was brought back to reality when during the next several days, I could not do another walking workout because my otherwise “better” left ankle was hurting badly. No doubt the pain was caused by the faster than expected pace and subsequent pressures placed on those already balky tendons. Other than the usual daily to and fro, I wasn’t able to do a brisk walk again until last Thursday and this was done on the treadmill. When the second day of training came on Saturday, I wasn’t sure what to expect of my ankles. Nevertheless, I showed up anyway. The mileage was going to be one up from the previous week (6 miles instead of 5). Will I be able to do 13:30 pace again with the extra mile?
About 120 people showed up for the 4 miler  (half marathoners) and 6 miler (full marathoners). I think there were three walkers including me but the other two were only doing 4 miles, so as it has been the last couple of weekends, I was alone again, naturally (apologies to Gilbert O’Sullivan).
Since I was walking all by myself and there wasn’t anybody around to key on or pace with, my concentration wavered at times. When I reached the finish of  the six miler and clicked off the GPS watch, my overall pace was 15 seconds per mile slower than the previous week. It was slightly deflating, but I thought, what the heck, I was only expecting 15 minutes per mile when I started these walking workouts. Considering that May 21st was supposed to be the end of the world, it was great to be able to spend the final day with running friends, to be alive, and be able to walk at a pace of 13:45 per mile. As close as one can get to rapture!

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AREC Marathon Training – 2011 Edition (In my case: walk training)

So what about these numbers: 13:30? Saturday morning was the start of the annual AREC marathon/half marathon training for the Long Beach Marathon, something I wasn’t sure if I was going to participate in this year due to my ankle issues. Plus all these shenanigans about waking up too early on Saturday mornings which I have become lazy about. Nevertheless I set my alarm at 5 a.m. and went anyway, if only to pick up my technical shirt for renewing my club membership. The night before, I had to decide whether to wear my shoes and orthotics for running, or the shoes and orthotics for walking (as I type this sentence, this word processor keeps on changing the word “orthotics” to “esthetics”). I opted for the latter because my last run two days before made my ankles too achy for another running workout. I got there early, filled out the necessary waivers, then started a warm up walk of one mile. Oh, it took about 15 minutes and 11 seconds which was not bad for a warm up.
There were the usual lengthy first day introductions before the start. I checked the sign up sheet and saw about 110 names on it. Not too shabby in spite of some people from the club running the Palos Verdes Marathon and Half that day. Just a tad before 8 a.m. we finally got started. I didn’t expect any other walkers in the group so I started from the rear so as not to get in the way of the runners. For the first time in a long time, I was not in the mix. But whadayaknow, I actually passed two joggers in the first 100 meters! I had set my watch to 4:1 intervals with a plan to walk hard for four minutes and recover for one minute. That plan was out the window after the first interval because I just kept on going and ignoring the recovery minute. I didn’t know how long I could keep up that clip and I also didn’t know what pace I was doing because I don’t have pace sense in walking as I used to do in running. In running I could guess my pace per mile depending on my perceived effort. However, I’m clueless about walking pace based on perceived effort. Since I couldn’t keep up with anybody, I was walking all by my lonesome until the club vice president who was taking pictures while running back and forth all over the course, caught up with me with a mile and a half to go. He managed to take a picture of  me from the side exposing all my gray hairedness (methinks it might be time to color my hair again which I haven’t done in about 4 years because I had given up vanity). In any case, I made it to the finish of the 5 mile walk, clicked my GPS watch off, checked my average pace per mile, and voila, it was a surprising 13:30! I don’t think I’ve ever walked that fast before even though I managed about 13:45 five or six years ago covering 10 miles. But that was when I only had a problem with the right ankle. Considering it was quite a cool morning, a sweat rate of two pounds was pretty good because it meant that I was putting some effort into my strides. Instead of longer strides when I don’t swing my arms, my steps were shorter and done at a faster clip. I still have a lot to learn about proper power walking technique. All I know is that it has something to do with the heel to toe push off plus some hip action. With the effort I put in last Saturday morning, it wasn’t much of a surprise that my ankles were hurting for days afterwards.
Other than passing a couple of people at the start, I was the trailing participant of the group. In fact, I was the last finisher. But, it was a very good finish.

Side note: In the past, I would have blogged about this right after I got home from the run. However, I've been getting lazy lately and writing about it has come later and later. My apologies.

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Long Beach Walking Club Part 2 and Palos Verdes Marathon Course 3

I walked with the Long Beach Walking Club at Signal Hill again last Saturday morning. This time I wasn’t as apprehensive about being able to keep up with the group since I already knew what their pace was like. In fact the pace last Saturday felt meandering compared to a couple of weeks back. I guess my companions were taking it easy on me. When the planned six miles was over, I continued on my own from the base of Hill Street. Instead of walking up the hill like I did two weeks ago, I ran up (well, very slowly), and instead of walking after I reached the apex, I continued running down 22^nd Street, made a right at the base of Stanley St. and ran up it. I followed the same extra miles I did before, running down Skyline Drive then up again and continuing to run until I reached the finishing point. All in all, the running part of the whole workout tallied just 2 ½ miles but it felt more satisfying than the other 6 ½ miles that I walked. The breakdown was like this: 6 miles walking + 2.5 miles running, + ½ mile cool down walk = 9 total miles. Not bad for a weak ankled non-runner who dabbles occasionally at running, and doing steep hills at that!

                Ok, so I was able to do 9 miles this time compared to 8.5 miles last time. That leaves me 4.1 more miles to finish a half marathon. But how did the ankles feel afterward? Well, very sore. On Sunday I received an email from AREC (A Running Experience Club) telling the members about a discount code for five dollars off for the Palos Verdes Marathon and Half Marathon. I checked out the website and found out that they are changing the course this year. It is now going to start and finish at Donald Trump’s Terranea Resort. I’ve run the original course in the 80’s and the second course several times in the 90’s and 2000’s, so I became curious about this third course change. The marathon will now be a double loop around Palos Verdes Peninsula, with supposedly lesser hills. I’m ambivalent about this because what makes the PV Marathon interesting and challenging is it’s hills. Having been able to walk + run 9 miles in Signal Hill the previous day, I started to think that I may be able to do a half marathon in Palos Verdes.

                The next day, my ankles felt somewhat ok when I woke up earlier than usual. I decided I would go for another walk but on a flat terrain this time to see how long I would last. I went around the Bixby Knolls and Virginia Country Club area hoping to hold onto a 15 minutes per mile pace. The first mile was 16 minutes and several miles after that was locked in at 15 minutes each. I would occasionally swing my arms and by doing that, I seemed to be able to knock off a few seconds per mile. In recent months, I was able to walk for 2 ½ hours on the treadmill and on one of those walks, half was done on the treadmill and half on the road. I figured that would be my goal last Monday. So around I went until I reached my goal time in which the last 15 minutes I was swinging my arms. That enabled me to do the last mile in about 14:20. So I was able to total 10 miles that day, a distance that I couldn’t run anymore. About 45 minutes more or so would enable me to finish a half marathon. But would my ankles be able to tolerate that much more time? They were already hurting somewhat badly during and after those 10 miles. I’ll find out soon enough if I decide to sign up for the Palos Verdes Marathon which is on May 14^th, if only to check out the new course and also see what the Terranea Resort is all about. That’s probably the closest I’ll get to a Trump property.

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Gorilla in the Mist

Blender stylized gorilla test animation walk cycle from Dave Ward on Vimeo.

On a misty and cool Saturday morning, I laced up my running shoes and went outdoors for a walk. The plan was for a 1½ to 2 hour jaunt around the neighborhood and I hoped to test the right calf and see if it can withstand 1 minute pickups in the process. I started with a 10 minute warm up but when I got to the end of that, instead of walking at a brisker pace for 1 minute, I began jogging for 1 minute. So far so good with no pain felt so I just kept doing the 1 minute jog and 1 minute walk intervals and maybe make it to an hour. There were times when I was tempted to do a 2 minute jog but I stayed conservative and kept it at 1 minute. Everything went along swimmingly until the 55 minute mark when I started to feel a slight shooting pain at the injury area. Not wanting to be set back another few weeks, I ended the jogging part of the workout and kept walking the rest of the time until I reached 1½ hours. The way I walk briskly sometimes, does not look like the swiveling hips of racewalkers but rather like a furless, thin and ravenous gorilla about to grab a low hanging fruit from a tree, hence the title (besides, I couldn’t think of anything better, so apologies to Dian Fossey). At least I can walk for that amount of time so that has added to my repertoire of workouts in addition to stationary and outdoor cycling and the elliptical machine. I don’t know when the next trial walk/run will be because I’ll have to give the calf time to recover since I feel some tightness on it. I was very reluctant to restart running because the injury I suffered on my right calf is alien to me, meaning it has never happened to that part of my body. To strengthen it, I’ve started doing calf raises, and hopefully that helps. Otherwise, it’s day to day.

Going back a few days, I did my usual 25 mile bike ride at the usual area. The GPS watch consistently measures it at 25 miles which is a surprise to me. Not 24.9 or 25.1, but exactly 25. There were no sights and sounds to be observed last Thursday morning because there were few runners and cyclists, no volleyball players on the beach, and even just a few people waiting at the dock of the Catalina Express. The only thing I saw a lot of was horse poop on the riverbed bike trail, more than I usually see. Otherwise, it was a good workout because I was able to push the pace most of the ride which endorphinized me for the rest of the day.

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Calf Testing

This one is a shorty. Since my right calf tolerated 30 minutes on the elliptical machine quite well on Monday afternoon, I did another test on Tuesday morning. As mentioned in previous posts, last week, I walked with trekking poles for an hour and on the treadmill for an hour and 15 minutes (holding on to the handlebars because I was reading the newspaper). On Tuesday, the plan was to walk without poles outdoors for at least an hour. That goal was reached plus 30 extra minutes although not as briskly as I’m capable of because I’m still trying to protect the gastrocnemius from the strain that occurred exactly two weeks prior. I could still occasionally feel that calf muscle pull especially when going up or downhill so that enabled me to resist the temptation of trying to run. You should have seen how my calf and ankle were wrapped in ice packs afterwards. How many ice packs do I have? Four: 2 large and 2 small ones. I’m now able to walk downstairs semi sideways with minimal or no pain. Maybe on my next walk I can try alternating one minute each of brisk walking with a minute recovery using a slower pace. If nothing untoward happens then perhaps I can try jogging for short periods of time and see how it feels.

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A Walk On The Mild Side

I haven’t done brisk walking as a workout in about three weeks since I got my bike, and the last time was with trekking poles. That lasted slightly more than an hour and a half and covered six miles. On Saturday morning, I decided to do another walk to test how my ankles would respond, but this time without the trekking poles. Since the AREC half marathon trainers were doing 7 miles, I thought I might try to do the same thing or something similar by myself. The initial aim was to go out for an hour and return an hour and see how many miles I can cover. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea do so much after not having done it in awhile but I hoped that it was worth trying.

My GPS watch was acting up last week and it wouldn’t power up. After looking on the internet for similar problems, I followed the advice of pressing three of the four buttons to reset the device. After having to try it twice, the watch started working again so I was able to use it on this attempted long walk.

I started from home and headed towards Signal Hill. The course was initially flat until I passed Wardlow Road and it became undulating. The one hour turnaround point was reached about a block past Willow Street on Cherry Avenue which was the border of Long Beach and Signal Hill, so it was time to turn around. My pace for the first mile was about 16 ½ minutes but it went steadily faster until it became an average of 15 minutes per mile when I reached 5 miles. I’m sorry to say that when I hit 7 miles my on again off again good left ankle began to hurt because it was supporting my bad right ankle so much. I managed to hang on because I didn’t have any choice but to keep on walking to get back home. When my watch hit the 2 hour mark, I had covered 8.09 miles at an average pace of 14:50.

Though my ankles were suffering, it was not a bad pace for someone who hadn’t done a walking workout in a while. You see, you have to get in shape for the specific activity you are doing and can’t just go and give it the old college try. Otherwise you would have suffered similarly as I did. By Sunday afternoon, aside from the sore ankles, I also had sore shins. I’ve overdone it again. Ya think?! It feels good to be able to walk below 15 minutes per mile but it doesn’t feel good to have sore ankles.

During the first hour of my walk I had visions of myself walking a marathon. When my ankles started hurting, reality set in and I wasn’t even sure if I could walk a half marathon. Time to give up endurance sports and just do this for fitness? You would think that being a former runner would help making walking easy. While it might feel easy cardiovascularly, it still strains already compromised joints. Yuck! Another unexciting blog, and this one was about walking, something people do every day even just from the TV to the fridge to get a beer and back. Apologies to whoever reads this. Tata…

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